January 13, 2023: Couch -

At their annual conference last weekend, The American Dialect Society chose their 2022 Word of the Year. You may have read about this in Rolling Stone. Or perhaps you heard it reported elsewhere, though I would be surprised if it made NPR. Let me know if I missed that.

In any case, (SPOILER ALERT), the ADS word of 2022 is the suffix “-ussy.”  

No doubt, you are protesting, “SUFFIX??” I know. I don’t make the news.

If you don’t know-ussy, and you are past your suffix outrage, you might be wondering (as I did) whether –ussy rhymes with FUSSY or with PUSSY?

The latter.

In fact, it is derived from PUSSY, and is added to other words, or even just the beginning of other words, to denote –ussification.

I enjoyed how this discussion went in my Linguistics class. I was in a small group with two twenty-somethings, and I asked what –ussy meant. They struggled to explain. We had been given examples of –ussy words, one of which was winussy, related to WINE, so I asked “Is it about cowardice? Is a winussy someone who is afraid of wine?”

No, said my classmates.  Then suddenly they were joking about “gruncles,” which (I just looked it up) are great uncles.(If you knew this already, you watch shows I don’t. If you knew –ussy, you are one of the “chronically online.” I thought I was chronically online, but apparently I’m bush league.)

I think “pussy” means three things. One is feline. One is anatomical. And the other one suggests cowardice, weakness, being a wimp, being spineless. I believe when Donald Trump called Mike Pence the p-word, he was not calling him a cat, but he WAS using the “cowardice” version which, alas, is related to the anatomical version, which is vulgar (more so when used by The Former Guy, who liked to grab women by same, as if it were some kind of handle), and which is based on an assumption that people with female anatomy are timid, and far less strong and assertive (=manly) than the other half of the populace. I think men get called “pussies” to slam them for being not only spineless, but also thereby effeminate.

Tell me you agree.

Anyway, our small group discussion ended with me no wiser, so I waited until the next class and tried again. Could someone explain what –ussy MEANT?

A short silence fell, and people looked at each other. Finally, one person said, “It’s about …. an opening? Or a crevice? In something? Suppose you were rooting around for coins in your couch cushions, and you had your arm way in there. Your roommate could say “What are you doing in the couchussy?”)

OH! Anatomical! Why didn’t they just say so?

And yet, unlike “pussy,” this one is (ostensibly) (kindof) feminist, according to one of the experts:

“Magically granting a vagina to every person, place and object ….deploys “feminized body terminology” in a non-pejorative way [says Kelly Zimmer, a member of the New Words Committee of the ADS]. “Google euphemisms for vagina, I mean, most of them are not playful,” she says. In that sense, the rise of “-ussy” is “nearly a miracle.”  

Okay! Noted!  

None of this was as surprising, though, as the reaction when I said that the “wimp” version of pussy was misogynist. No, no, said several classmates! The wimp version is about CATS. That use of “pussy” is about how easily frightened CATS are, you know: scaredy-cats.

I’ve checked with three grown women friends on this, and we are unanimous: the wimp version is not about cats. If you believe the wimp version IS about cats, and you want to correct me, go for it, but know that right now, I’m assuming that anyone deluded on this point is young, or male, or both. Prove me wrong.